Speaking of which, that seems to be the logic here: don't argue against bad music or make the obvious inferences based on the available 240 seconds of material, thus more or less defending that material instead.

I don't get it. Listening to Burzum is never about "that one memorable riff" (otherwise you wouldn't like Hlidskjalf), while the Immolation's song you're referring to was, indeed, a whole song. How can you extrapolate the context in which those 30 seconds are set, which direction that riff is coming from, and where it's going to, considering that the average track length is above 5 minutes?It's not about "defending" or "bashing", it's about time.

Speaking of which, that seems to be the logic here: don't argue against bad music or make the obvious inferences based on the available 240 seconds of material, thus more or less defending that material instead.

I don't get it. Listening to Burzum is never about "that one memorable riff" (otherwise you wouldn't like Hlidskjalf), while the Immolation's song you're referring to was, indeed, a whole song. How can you extrapolate the context in which those 30 seconds are set, which direction that riff is coming from, and where it's going to, considering that the average track length is above 5 minutes?It's not about "defending" or "bashing", it's about time.

Well, we've heard the intro in full, and it has no reason to exist. We can ignore it because it probably won't have much impact on the album as a whole, but "Sverddans" is about two and a half minutes long, and from the sound of it, isn't going to develop into anything interesting at all. We've heard about a fifth of the song, and there is no real reason for it to do anything else within its particular framework. The rest of the tracks are harder to make statements about, but context isn't everything. Sections of songs often cannot stand on their own without surrounding phrases and logic, but that doesn't mean they'll sound bad when taken out of context; it just means they'll sound uninteresting, or not as interesting as they could. These samples sound bad because they sound illogical, and poor logic cannot be fixed by context.

Finally, out of eight samples, none sound above par. What are the odds that not one of the samples is good, but the album as a whole will be? To think this is worth "reserving judgment" over is to grasp at straws. If ANUS is being biased about this album, I wouldn't know one way or the other, but it does seem as though a lot of people have a sentimental attachment to Burzum, and are scared to say anything bad about its work. Maybe both sides are biased, in which case, only one can be right.

Given that logic - or the lack thereof - is only apparent in the progression of ideas, how does one arrive at the conclusion of "illogical" without actually being able to observe that progression? There are some readily apparent warning signs in the samples, and I don't expect much at this point, but logic is an If-->Then proposition. All we've got are a handful of Ifs (or maybe Ands?) at the moment, so I question whether we have the necessary evidence to reach a conclusive judgment.

Given that logic - or the lack thereof - is only apparent in the progression of ideas, how does one arrive at the conclusion of "illogical" without actually being able to observe that progression? There are some readily apparent warning signs in the samples, and I don't expect much at this point, but logic is an If-->Then proposition. All we've got are a handful of Ifs (or maybe Ands?) at the moment, so I question whether we have the necessary evidence to reach a conclusive judgment.

Example premise and conclusion:

If life is hard, we should give up and kill ourselves.

Conclusion by itself:

we should give up and kill ourselves

Why would I ever take that 'then' seriously, regardless of what came before it? Likewise, plenty of 'if's have no basis in reality. Previous experience with similar scenarios comes before the 'starting point' in logic, and in this case, I think we can make fairly accurate inferences as regards quality based on the fragments of the logic. These inferences are not absolute; rather, they are the necessary default, and liable to change. What's the point in pretending like we're powerless and incapable of making guesses?

Hundreds of years worth of great music is out there, though. I'm not going to be losing any sleep over this one.

Logic has to do with relations between propositions. What the fuck does that have to do with sounds? I'm not sure what it would mean for a particular sample of music to be illogical. If you are claiming that you can make inferences from these samples to the quality of the final product, that has nothing to do with the music's being illogical.

The release of the samples has so far told me nothing about the album, but it did teach me that a lot of people here place more judgment on aesthetics than they would like us to believe. I don't know whether the album will be good or bad, but I do know whose opinions are not worth much anymore.

Unfortunately I used a 10 Watt Marshall for one of the guitars on the début, and I should not have done that. I used an excellent Peavey 60 Watt amp/speaker for the other guitar, and I really should have used that for both guitars. I therefore used a 120 Watt Peavey 6505 for both guitars this time. (I gave away my 60 Watt Peavey during my incarceration, so I had to get a new amp.)

The biggest difference from the first to the latest album is perhaps that I spent at least some time on the production of the album...

Resurgam (Russia): You are in debt to Norwegian government for burning churches. Will the sales return from "Belus" album be used to pay this debt?

Of course not. Thanks for asking though. I really don't want anyone to believe that a single penny of my or anybody else's income from Burzum will be used to pay this debt. The only thing they will ever get from me is the finger, so to speak.

From the new interview on the ORG page... [to put it short, no drum machines on the new album and no reparations for the church burnings]

Edit: that "interview" was enlightening, to say the least. Raises my expectations of this album (unfortunately).

.ORG carefully distributes incentives for fanboy drooling one chunk of not-so-interesting info at a time. Also: nice move to gather the interview questions before the samples were put out.I can barely contain myself in anticipation of a BURZUM charity concert for MOTHER RUSSIA.